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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Heard" data-source="post: 3926445" data-attributes="member: 7280">Janis nods in understanding."Perhaps we did...and what of it? Did anyone promise you that life would be without its challenges?" Janis pitches her voice louder so that more can hear her."You people keep your head down and you call it victory. It is not, it is a slow disappearing. Even less than a day's travel outside this valley none have heard of the fine town of Barovia, and why? Because every single one of you acts as if you're already beaten by this plague, this cursed malaise of complacency. Perhaps my friends I did stir the creatures of fur and forest to strike at you here, but it is only because they recognize us for what we are: We are the sword you choose not to wield for yourself that shall strike these chains from you that bind you.""Elsewhere in the world we have finished fighting a Great War. Women and children who looked to their brothers and fathers every morning without knowing if they would return are now comforted knowing there is peace in our land. People rebuild their homes and communities, they know a future together."Janis steps up onto the back of a cart."But here...Here you are still fighting a war, a war you have been fighting for ages. Hundreds of years after your forefathers began this war, yet you still are not free. The people of Barovia are still crippled by the manacles of fear and chains of necromancy. Hundreds of years later, the people of Barovia live on a lonely island of spiritual poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of prosperity. Hundreds of years later, the people of Barovia are still languishing in the corners of Khorvaire and find themselves exiled in their own lands. And so we've come here today to correct this shameful condition. Today""We have come to this valley to remind Barovians of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of complacency. Now is the time to make real the promises of your future. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of oppression to the sunlit path of justice. Now is the time to lift ourselves from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of Barovia's children.""There is something that I must also say to Barovians, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining your rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and determination. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into violence between ourselves. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.""Now is not the time to look down upon your brothers in this struggle. Their destiny, our destiny, is your own. We have come here because the freedom of Barovia is the freedom of all men and women. The struggle of anyone in bondage is everyone's struggle.""You walk here in this square with your families and your loved ones, your neighbors and your companions. You do not walk alone. And as we walk toward a brighter tomorrow, each of us must make a promise that we shall always march ahead.""We cannot turn back. We will not turn back, until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.""Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. For I have had a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the dreams of my fathers and your forefathers. A dream where the people of Barovia will walk tall outside this valley and no longer suffer. A dream where the night of oppression is lit by stars and each of us sings out to each other - 'I have seen the dream. I have seen the light. I have won the battle, but I have not begun to fight!'""People of Barovia! I have seen the dream, and the dream is now"Janis looks over the people from her position on the cart, and then steps off before heading toward the inn. Laying a hand on Jarrith and Khensu as she passes she comments."I'm glad you're ok."OOC: Martin Luther King Jr. is no doubt rolling over in his grave right now. Um, I think that's a diplomacy check for speechifying. Spending an AP, because why not?</blockquote>

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